


Tel Mo'Kalach

by NebulousMistress



Series: Iaso, Lady of the Void [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s02e13 Critical Mass, Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Liberties taken with the Goa'uld, did the research
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 04:38:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14180805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: Iaso's vengeance seems to have failed. Colonel Caldwell is fine. He won't talk much about what happened to him but he's fine. Honest.





	Tel Mo'Kalach

**Author's Note:**

> Squick warning for description of a surgical emergency. There be intestines in them thar bellies.

The interrogation rooms on level 16 didn't often hold members of the US military. However, extreme circumstances called for extreme measures.

Colonel Sam Carter paced the small room. A desk and two chairs stood in the middle, one chair occupied. Lieutenant Mark Stuart of the _Daedalus_ sat alone, his hands on the table before him. He wasn't bound or coerced, this wasn't a true interrogation even though the camera in the corner recorded every sound and movement.

They both knew why he was here.

“After the extraction, Colonel Caldwell was transported down to Atlantis,” Carter said, reciting from a report she'd read earlier. “A lethal dose of sodium thiopenthal was used to subdue the Goa'uld within him before extraction.”

“Dr. Beckett was able to bring him back," Stuart agreed. "Once he was stable we beamed him back and left for Earth. Caldwell was in a coma for most of the trip. He woke up a few days ago as we were passing the outer rim.”

“What's your assessment of his condition since then?” Carter asked.

“Subdued,” Stuart said. “His quarters have been sealed on Major Lorne's orders. He, ah, that is, Major Lorne thought the SGC might want to get a look at it all before...”

“Of course. We are aware.”

“Oh.”

“What's your assessment of Colonel Caldwell's condition?” Carter asked again. She fixed him with a hard stare, icy blue eyes telling him in no uncertain terms that she knew something.

Stuart swallowed heavily. “He...” He cleared his throat. “He was my friend,” he admitted. “Caldwell was always friendly, always willing to talk, I've never had another commanding officer like him.”

“Explain,” Carter demanded.

Stuart tried to find words to explain it. He wasn't sure how, so much of it was just a feeling. But he could give examples. “We lost people during the first ferry to Atlantis,” he said. “A Wraith computer virus. After it was all over and we were safe Caldwell lead a toast for the dead. I've never had that before. I've never had a commanding officer willing or able to take the time to acknowledge people we lost. Not without it being uncomfortable.”

“What kind of toast?”

Stuart shrugged. “It was a little strange at first,” he allowed. “But you could tell he meant it. And it was comforting to know we wouldn't be forgotten. That our deaths weren't the end of it.”

Carter went still, a chill expanding from her chest. “What were his exact words?” she asked.

Stuart remembered the words but he wasn't sure he could give them the same weight Caldwell had. There had always been something about the man that made these words real. “Death is not an end, it's the beginning,” Stuart said, quoting one of Caldwell's toasts. “The end only comes when we choose to forget. Dr. Richard Monroe gave his service to this ship freely, not as a military man but as an engineer. His journey has ended but ours must continue without fear, without doubt. We remember him as we tread the Void.”

Carter pulled the empty chair toward her and sat down heavily. The words seemed innocent enough to the untrained ear, certainly strange but nothing particularly alarming. There were little things, though, that induced dread in her. “Death is only the beginning,” she said.

Stuart nodded. “That's something the Goa'uld said right before it was extracted.” Then he realized. “Oh...”

Carter nodded. No wonder nobody on the _Daedalus_ thought anything was wrong. There would have been no sudden shift in command style demarcating when Caldwell was taken as a host. Not if he'd always been one.

*****

She'd never grow tired of the view.

Carter stood on the observation deck of the _Daedalus_ , watching Earth slowly rotating below. It was winter in the northern hemisphere yet a tropical storm spiraled over open ocean. From this orbit the _Daedalus_ flew safely above the International Space Station and reconnaissance satellites, too far below distracted weather satellites to be detected as anything more than a smudge on the lens. They were safe here.

Carter didn't feel safe here. A Goa'uld had infiltrated here, it left her feeling itchy. She was here to find out how thorough it's infiltration had been, how badly the SGC failed.

She turned her back on the blue and green orb and its mar of white storm below.

Colonel Caldwell's quarters were just off an unassuming corridor near the bow of the ship, guaranteeing an excellent view while in normal space though the view in hyperspace would have been nauseating. Dr. Daniel Jackson and Teal'c stood inside, Teal'c observing with a disapproving air while Daniel had the closet doors open.

“Colonel Carter,” Teal'c greeted.

“Hmm?” Daniel pulled himself from the closet before sticking his head back inside. “Hey, Sam,” he said, voice muffled. He made a triumphant noise and pulled out a white linen garment, the flowing fabric draping over his arms. He let the long end of it drop. Its hem fell to the floor as he held the neckline to his own shoulders. “I think the Goa'uld planned on keeping its host.”

“Indeed,” Teal'c said, deadpanned.

“Wonder who it was,” Carter said as she pulled the dresser drawers open. She found the collection of jewelry, gold and silver and fat gems. She pulled a bottle from its lovingly packed tray and pulled the glass stopper. She sniffed and her eyes fell closed, a low sound falling from her throat.

“Perfume?” Teal'c asked.

“Better,” she said absently. “Anointing oil. You can smell the myrrh...”

Daniel handed Teal'c the linen and took the bottle of oil from Carter. She glared at him as he put the stopper back in the bottle and the bottle on the dresser. She reached into the drawer and pulled out another bottle. One sniff of this one caused her nose to wrinkle as she snorted. “Okay, I was wrong, **this** is myrrh.”

Daniel plucked this bottle from her as well. He wafted the scent to his nose. “Rosemary and myrrh,” he mused. “Not a normal combination.”

Teal'c pulled open a lower drawer and rummaged around. He found clothes, some of them much softer than regulations approved of, and... “I believe I have found something,” he said as he pulled out a bundle wrapped in white silk. The silk fell away to reveal a gold hand mirror.

“You don't think the Goa'uld worshiped itself?” Sam asked.

“It believed itself a god,” Teal'c said as though that explained it.

“A god without worshipers,” Daniel mused. He twisted and turned, trying to see all the mirror's details despite the awkward angle Teal'c held it. The mirror's back was detailed with a skeleton wrapped up in some kind of snake, pale mother-of-pearl inset to make the bones shimmer. Tiny rubies set into the snake's head served as eyes. More tiny rubies dotted the mirror's details, upon closer inspection each ruby matched to a serpent's eye. “I wonder if it ever served under Apophis.”

“These are not serpents of Apophis,” Teal'c said. “I have seen these before.”

“Do tell,” Daniel said.

“These serpents are relics of an unaligned family,” Teal'c said. “I was not permitted to learn their history but I heard tales regardless. They were a family of great healers until the children usurped their father's throne and the entire family consumed each other.”

“You'll have to tell me the whole story later,” Daniel said.

Carter vaguely listened to the discussion behind her as she explored the top drawer. She pulled out what looked like a bracelet at first glance but it kept going, bands upon bands of gold that would have nearly encased the arm like golden armor. The serpent motif continued here, tiny scales pounded into the bands like the whole thing were a snake wrapped around the arm to squeeze it. But what interested her were the patterns inside the bands where gold would have touched skin. It looked like delicate circuitry.

*****

“Unscheduled offworld activation.”

Caldwell looked up with disinterest before ignoring the warning. He wasn't in the gateroom, nowhere near it. He was in the infirmary while Dr. Lam finished up her medical exam. The Goa'uld symbiote that had lived within his head now languished in a jar, executed by being encased alive in resin, but that didn't mean the SGC was willing to accept that its influence was entirely gone.

“As far as I can tell you're fine,” Dr. Carolyn Lam said. “There's no physical remnant, you weren't affected by its poison, and I see no evidence of brain damage from the extraction. Medically you're cleared for duty. I'm going to recommend some sessions with Dr. Eva Robinson.”

“A psychologist,” Caldwell predicted.

“She has some experience with the aftermath of mental intrusion,” Lam said. “Mostly involving the Ori. But she spoke with Vala Mal Doran while she was here. Several times.”

“Who?”

Dr. Lam's radio chirped. “Yes?” She went still then began to move. “Understood.” She tapped the radio off and began shouting. “We have incoming! SG-13 inbound with crush injuries, ETA two minutes! I need beds prepped and surgery ready!” She turned to Caldwell. “I'm sorry, Colonel, but I need you out of the way.”

“Of course,” Caldwell said. It didn't occur to him to leave.

A scream pierced the room as Colonel Dixon was wheeled in, strapped to a backboard. His right side didn't sit right, somehow misshapen as he screamed and tried to thrash in agony. A nurse grabbed scissors and began cutting away his uniform while his teammates frantically rattled off details of an explosion and a cave-in and the boulders that crushed him and Deveraux having to listen to him scream while Wells ran back to the gate to get help.

Morphine got him still and the medical team moved him, backboard and all, to an x-ray machine to get a quick look at the damage. Data fed to a monitor along one wall while Dixon finally went silent.

One look at Dr. Lam's expression spoke volumes more than any words ever could. “Keep him under,” she said.

Caldwell recognized that posture, the healer accepting the death of her patient. “You can't save him,” he said.

“Get out,” Lam said, sneering at him.

“I'm sure the SGC collects all manner of alien devices,” Caldwell said, ignoring her ire. “The Goa'uld have healing devices. Surely you've salvaged one.”

Lam turned to him, fury clear in her eyes but-- “You! But you don't have any idea how to use it! Do you?”

Caldwell smiled. His expression unnerved her on some visceral level but if there was a chance... She pointed at Captain Deveraux. “The Goa'uld healing device,” she demanded. “It's in Dr. Jackson's lab. Get it now!” Deveraux left without a word, his pounding footsteps fading as he ran.

“You're the healer here,” Caldwell said. “I will need your assistance. Clean him as best you can, I need to see the damage.”

Dr. Lam nodded, a frisson of strange excitement running up her spine. She hadn't felt like this since early in her first residency, stepping outside the classroom for the first time into the emergency department of a hospital. She had a flashback to a gunshot victim, she was so sure he wouldn't make it. She was wrong then. Maybe she'd be wrong here too.

“I can do better than that,” she said. She wiped down her hands with iodine, pulled on a fresh pair of gloves, and picked up a scalpel.

Colonel Dixon didn't look nearly as bad as she knew him to be. The x-ray images showed his crushed pelvis, the muddied shadows of ruptured organs, the shattered femur, the mangled spine. His belly was beginning to bloat with inflammation and the dead blood shed by internal bleeding. Without extensive surgery he would be dead within the hour. Even with it, his chances of surviving the week were poor. He'd never walk again.

Caldwell watched with interest as black blood welled from the slice to the belly. He watched with a strange sense of pride as deft hands opened their patient and began to catalog the damage. “Good,” Caldwell praised. “I can see what I'm doing.”

The door to the infirmary opened and Deveraux ran in carrying a small thing, hope cascading from him in waves. The device thrummed against Caldwell's blood, sang to him. He took the device, its bright bronze corroded to black, the scales still clear but the red serpent's eyes lost to malicious filing meant to erase the machine's source. He held the Goa'uld healing device, its red center flaring bright in his hand.

“Where's the second one?” Caldwell asked.

Hope faded to confusion. “What second one?” Deveraux asked.

“There is no second one,” Lam said.

“This was designed to work in a pair,” Caldwell said. “It's a two-handed device! Where's the other one?”

“There is no second one!” Lam snapped. “Can you work it or not!”

Caldwell took a deep breath, letting it out in a growl. “No wonder you don't use this often,” he said. “I bet it kills half as many people who benefit.” He slipped the device over his right hand, the better to reach the injury without interfering with surgery, and willed it awake.

The device sputtered, his left hand grasping for the missing second part. Instead he laid that hand on Dixon's sweaty forehead and pushed with his mind. The sputtering stilled and the device began to thrum, warm and comfortable, its red light glowing like a hot coal.

Dr. Lam watched with fascination as Caldwell wielded the device and its power. She'd never had the opportunity to see its workings up close like this, not while actively performing surgery on the patient. Darkened and crushed intestines calmed and plumped, turning pink and healthy under her hands. The crushed pelvis reshaped, Dixon's hips regaining their proper structure. Bones crunched and cartilage crumbled as shards shifted and merged to form bones and joints.

And then it began to go wrong.

“He's crashing,” Lam said. “He can't take much more of this.”

“A stimulant,” Caldwell growled, teeth grinding with effort. The device glowed brighter somehow, almost as though it were trying to bolster Dixon as well as heal him.

“Get an IV in him,” Lam ordered, causing the nurses to finally stop watching and get to work. “Push 1 mg of epinephrine and keep him under! Get a pint of O-negative in him!”

Suddenly the infirmary came back to life, surgical tools available for use and nurses getting scrubbed up to assist. Dr. Lam began wiping away dead blood and discarded viscera from the surgical wound, clearing out infection before it started.

She didn't even notice as Caldwell stepped away, leaning exhausted against the nearest convenient wall. The device grew quiet and cold, its red light fading as Dr. Lam continued with the surgery, handling the last of the soft tissue damage before closing the wound.

When she looked up in triumph Caldwell was gone and she was left with a growing unease. Colonel Caldwell was no doctor, he had no experience with medicine at all. But he clearly knew what he was doing in a strange instinctual way. Who had he been hosting for these past months?

*****

Dr. Lam knocked on the door to Dr. Jackson's lab. She heard movement within but no answer so she pushed the door open.

Jackson's lab was a mess. Open books lay interleaved on top of and among themselves, their own pages being used to hold places in each other. A complex gold bracelet or maybe a bracer lay partially disassembled on one lab table, tiny chain links and wide gold bands scattered about. The serpentine detailing of the jewelry did not fill her with confidence. Rather it chilled her as she realized.

The Goa'uld were once the gods of ancient myth and legend. They weren't true gods but that didn't matter to the civilizations who venerated them as such. She knew the stories, had read the mission reports. Greek, Egyptian, Sumerian gods and heroes, all of them were alien parasites who merely seemed like gods to the humans who worshiped them. Was it so strange, then, that one such 'god' had been extracted from Caldwell?

It shouldn't be strange but it was. The personal level of it all made her blood run cold.

“What's up?” Jackson asked as he carefully unfolded another gold link using tiny jeweler's tools.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Caldwell's symbiote commissioned a lot of jewelry,” Jackson said, gesturing to the piece before him. “This is just one piece. Sam thinks there might be hidden technology in here.”

“I see,” Lam said.

“What brings you here?”

“Do we know who the Goa'uld was?” Lam asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Not yet,” Jackson admitted. “None of Caldwell's crew knew its name and he hasn't told anyone. Why?”

Dr. Lam took a deep breath. It didn't help one bit. “I may have an idea,” she admitted.

Jackson put down his tools and sat back. He looked at her expectantly. When she didn't say anything more he had to ask. “What makes you think that?” he asked.

“Colonel Dixon.”

“Does Colonel Dixon know?”

Dr. Lam shook her head. “SG-13 came in early, Colonel Dixon was caught in some sort of explosion. There wasn't much I could have done for him. I had Caldwell in the infirmary, he called for the Goa'uld healing device and demanded to know where the other part was.”

“There isn't another part to it,” Jackson mused.

“I didn't think there was either,” Lam said. “But he seemed to know what he was talking about. It worked for him and then... I performed surgery on a man and watched his organs regrow in front of my eyes.”

“You didn't stop him?”

Dr. Lam looked offended. “Of course not.”

“Is Colonel Dixon all right?”

“He'll be fine,” Lam said. “The device had to regrow eleven feet of intestine and reassemble his right femur and the pelvic girdle. I've never seen internal bleeding stop that way before. It's a testament to Caldwell's skill with the device that it didn't kill him. He'll need six weeks of medical leave and some PT before he'll be cleared for duty. Still, he should be dead.”

“And this led you to the name of Caldwell's Goa'uld?”

“I believe I swore an oath to that Goa'uld once.”

Dr. Jackson's eyebrows shot up.

“We all did,” Lam said quickly. “After graduating medical school. We all swore the same Oath.”

Realization crossed Jackson's face. “The Hippocratic Oath.”

“'I swear by Apollo the Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses that I will carry out according to my ability and judgment this oath and this indenture',” Lam said, quoting the opening statement of the Hippocratic Oath she swore in medical school.

“We never met Apollo,” Jackson admitted. “But Apollo's mythical connections to serpents were rarely positive.” He fingered one of the gold bands of the bracelet, the scales delicately pounded into the metal. The head of the serpent would have sat high on the arm, the rest of the bands like coils wrapped around the arm down to the tail curled delicately around the hand. And then he realized as well. “But Asclepius and his entire family...”

“Has the SGC ever found them?” Lam asked, dreading the answer.

Jackson thought about it. “Imhotep,” he said. “Teal'c killed him a few years ago. There was rumor he went by several names over the years.”

“Including Asclepius,” Lam said. She had no idea why she felt disappointed by that fact. Then it hit her. “What about his daughters?”

“No word on any of them,” Jackson said. He watched the visible relief wash over Dr. Lam before she managed to hide it. “Dr. Lam, these aren't gods. They never were gods. The Goa'uld kept entire cultures of enslaved humans to worship them as the gods they believed themselves to be. They care nothing for their hosts or their pets. Caldwell is lucky he escaped with his mind intact. That symbiote, whoever or whatever it claimed to be, was a monster. The fact that Caldwell might remember how to use a healing device doesn't change that fact.”

“I know,” Lam said. She wanted to protest, to admit that it was different this time, that if Caldwell had been hosting one of the Greek gods of healing then that knowledge should be exploited. He knew without thinking that their healing device was incomplete, what else did he still remember? What other secrets remained locked in that brain?

“Don't,” Jackson warned. “Don't go there, Carolyn. You'll only be disappointed.”

She sighed and nodded. “Okay,” she said. She turned and left, closing the lab door behind her.

They both knew she wasn't going to let this go.

*****

Caldwell could feel her before she knocked on his door. Colonel Carter. Something about her tugged at his blood, a magnetic itch that left him absently scratching his arms.

The VIP quarters were a decent enough prison but it was still a prison. He couldn't leave without an escort, not yet, not so soon after hosting. Not until the SGC doctors were sure he was exactly who he said he was.

Caldwell opened the door. The itchiness increased as the only barrier between them fell. She didn't look much better, the hairs on her arms standing on end and a distinct discomfort on her face. “Now I understand why you avoided me for months,” Carter said.

“Does it always feel like this?” Caldwell asked.

“Only around someone who's hosted previously,” Carter said. “Or currently hosting. And around naquadah. I hope that's not going to bother you what with the _Daedalus_...”

Caldwell thought back to his time on the _Daedalus_ , those past few days between when he woke up and when they beamed him down. The _Daedalus_ didn't itch like this, it felt warm and soft like the gentle breath of a lover. “I have never had this problem with the _Daedalus_ ,” he assured her.

“Different or less itchy?” Carter asked as she gestured to the corridor.

“Definitely different,” Caldwell admitted. “You're itchy. The _Daedalus_ feels warm.”

“For me the _Daedalus_ is itchy and you're cold,” Carter said. “The _Prometheus_ feels like a live wire, like I'm going to get shocked if I touch the controls the wrong way.” It was a credit to the SGC that she and Caldwell could openly discuss something as incongruous as what naquadah-lacing felt like without getting more than a few token stares. It was a topic that Carter rarely got to indulge in, not when she remained the only one who'd hosted who was willing to talk about the aftereffects. Naquadah dissolved in the blood left former hosts able to use Goa'uld technology, able to sense the naquadah in technology and in raw ore, in the blood of other hosts, but it wasn't easy to quantify in words. Not in a way that sounded sane. “The gate feels beautiful. The event horizon feels like sinking into a hot bath.”

“I've never had the chance to find out what the...” Caldwell caught himself just as the sibilant began on his tongue. It wasn't the chappa'ai, not now and not anymore. Not if he ever wanted to leave his new prison. He ignored the interested stare on Carter's face, tried to pretend she wasn't looking at him with suspicion and calculation. “What the gate feels like,” he finished.

“I admit, I didn't slip up like that when I got free,” Carter said. “But Jolinar was a Tok'ra and mine was a much gentler ride.”

“She was harsh at first,” Caldwell admitted.

“Only at first?”

Caldwell shrugged. “She was good to my crew. I wonder if they'll like her more than me.”

“I hope they don't notice,” Carter said as they rounded the corner to the elevator. “She would have had to mimic you pretty clearly to get away with what she did. Did she have a name?”

Caldwell didn't answer at first. He waited until the elevator doors closed and there was no one else to hear. “Her name was Iaso,” he said.

*****

Earth faded into the distance behind them. The _Daedalus_ left orbit, flying toward the sun to hide its power signature from orbital observatories and amateur astronomers. The ship _Daedalus_ , named for the inventor who warned against flying too high lest his wings of wax melt in the sun, angled toward the constellations Pegasus and Andromeda, the princess chained as sacrifice to sate the sea monster and the hero's winged steed swooping to her rescue.

There was a metaphor there but Caldwell didn't want to dwell on it. He glanced at the navigator's seat, the Lieutenant Colonel seated there as Caldwell's own set of chains to keep him in line. Colonel Patrick Bishop was a transfer in; the SGC insisted his presence had nothing to do with Caldwell's recent experience as a host. But in case Caldwell felt he needed a break or the crew wondered if he could be trusted, now he had someone of rank to rely on to command the ship. No more commanding a collection of captains and lieutenants, now Caldwell would have real leadership to fall back on. In case he needed it.

Just in case.

The sun faded behind them and with it the scrutiny of the SGC. The worry of melted wings faded to distant memory and the chains binding the princess could be ignored. Caldwell relaxed, easily sliding from his tense command posture to something more befitting of a goddess.

“Take us into hyperspace,” Caldwell commanded, the order falling from his lips with every expectation of obedience.

He was not denied.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [tumblr](http://nebulousmistress.tumblr.com/) where you can find a hundred little fanfics I never posted here. Check it out, drop a line, maybe dare me to write something for you.


End file.
